Investigating the role of posterior lateral temporal cortex in semantic control and across domains

The project is a multi-method exploration of the posterior lateral temporal cortex of the brain and its functions across multiple cognitive domains, such as semantic control, semantic representation, theory of mind, perception of biological motion and faces, and others. The aim is to understand the broader cognitive processes that underpin these specific tasks and how the domains relate to one another, and therefore to gain a better understanding of how this region of the brain is organised on a macro scale.

The first year of the project included a cross-domain neuroimaging meta-analysis that is now in the write-up phase. The original timeline of the project detailed that a task-based fMRI study would be starting around this time (data collection no later than Michaelmas 2020), but due to lack of access to the MR scanning facility and the backlog of research in the Unit, this has been pushed back and replaced with additional MRI connectivity analyses from existing datasets to keep the PhD "ticking over". The final year of the project included plans for a brain stimulation study (TMS) and potentially some computational modelling work.